Madigan: Pass budget now, round up tax hike votes later

House Speaker Michael Madigan said today the House plans to pass a full budget first and then round up votes to keep tax hike in place to pay for the spending.

House Speaker Michael Madigan said today the House plans to pass a full budget first and then round up votes to keep tax hike in place to pay for the spending.

Monique Garcia and Ray LongClout Street

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Democrats are taking a spend first, find-the-money-later approach as they craft a new state budget, laying out their priorities despite uncertainty that they’ll be able to gather enough votes to extend a temporary income-tax increase to pay for it all.

Republicans contended the move was irresponsible at best and unconstitutional at worst, noting the Democratic plan would see the state spend around $38 billion with only $34 billion coming in unless the tax hike is extended past its scheduled January expiration date.

But Democrats who control the legislature argued it was imperative to get the budget process started as the May 31 adjournment deadline looms. House Speaker Michael Madigan said there’s plenty of time to pick up votes to extend the income-tax hike before lawmakers head home for the summer, saying the strategy of voting on spending first is aimed at building support for the tax by showing lawmakers the services the extra funds would provide back home.

“We’re working our roll call and our purpose in advancing the budget first is to set the bar against which people work to convince people to vote for the revenue,” Madigan said.

The approach sets the political stage for the next two weeks and potentially the rest of the year at the Capitol. If Democrats don’t approve the income-tax hike measure or other new revenue to balance the budget before month’s end, they likely will wait until after the Nov. 4 election to take up the issue.

Such a delay would further frame the race for governor and Illinois House and Senate contests as primarily about the fate of the 2011 income-tax increase that took personal rates from 3 percent to 5 percent. The rate is supposed to fall back to 3.75 percent next year if nothing is done.

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn says the tax hike should be made permanent, while Republican challenger Bruce Rauner says it should go away. If Quinn is re-elected, legislators from his political party could gain some cover by claiming voters support his call to make the tax increase permanent. If victory goes to Rauner, Democrats could leave it to him to figure out the ensuing budget cliff.

Madigan, who also is chairman of the state Democratic Party, declined to talk about the politics Wednesday, saying he’s focused on “policy orientated conversations” to try to convince his members to make the tax increase permanent.

“We talk in terms of their view of what the state should be, what the state should be doing for its citizens,” Madigan added. “They’re all policy orientated conversations, and we really enjoy them.”

A Quinn spokeswoman would not say if the governor would sign off on a budget without a tax increase, saying the administration will “continue to work with legislators as part of the budget process.”

The sausage-making process started Wednesday when House appropriations committees gave initial approval to key portions of the roughly $38 billion plan, which is nearly $4 billion more than lawmakers have projected will be available without the extra tax money. A vote on the House floor could come as soon as Thursday.

The committee votes fell along party lines as Republicans argued that voting for spending before knowing how much money is available would all but ensure the tax increase is made permanent. “By voting on the expenditures and not voting on what the revenue is, by voting on these today, you are voting on the tax increase,” said Rep. Patti Bellock, R-Hinsdale.

Republicans also argued that the math being used by Democrats was unconstitutional, noting the nearly $4 billion shortfall that could result and pointing to a provision in the Illinois Constitution that states “appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.”

“This process is all backward and upside down,” said Rep. Chad Hays, R-Catlin. “Who on planet Earth budgets in this fashion? I mean, individuals? No. Families? No. Businesses large and small? No.”Madigan dismissed the legal concerns as “fiction,” and Rep. Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat who chairs the human services appropriations committee, argued that lawmakers must first determine what they want to spend money on before asking taxpayers to pony up for it. He said there were other revenue ideas floating around the Capitol beyond the tax increase, such as the possibility of keeping more of the tax money sent to local towns, though that proposal has failed to gain traction.

“This always comes down to the last couple weeks and it’s always a cliffhanger,” Harris said. “We have to look at different sources of revenue.”

Under the budget advanced Wednesday, the state would make the full $6.5 billion payment for employee pensions, along with more than $2 billion in debt service payments for past borrowing. Kindergarten through high school education would see a slight increase to approximately $6.7 billion, while funding for state universities would remain flat except for a $51 million increase in scholarship grants for low-income students, according to one legislative analysis.

Human service programs would avoid the large cuts seen in recent years, with the plan calling for an additional $93 million for community care programs, an added $21 million for home services for the elderly and disabled and an extra $45 million for child care grants for the poor. State police would see a $18.5 million bump to cover rising personnel costs, and the Illinois Department of Corrections would get an additional $9 million to re-open two juvenile prisons Quinn closed in Joliet and Murphysboro and convert one into a prison for drunk driving offenders and the other into a prison for those who need mental health treatment.

In the appropriations panel dealing with public safety, Republicans got an opportunity to take some political shots at Quinn’s controversial 2010 anti-violence program that has come under state and federal scrutiny.

Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, pressed Democrats on what happened to $5 million proposed for the Chicago Area Project, which used some of the state grant money to hire Benton Cook III, the husband of Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown. Cook’s involvement in the grant program has drawn the attention of county and federal investigators. County prosecutors also are looking at an unusual land deal that netted Brown and Cook a profit of tens of thousands of dollars with no money down. Cook also faces scrutiny from state regulators who contend he’s presenting himself as a clinical psychologist even though he doesn’t have a license.

Chicago Democratic Rep. Luis Arroyo eventually said the money had been moved to the Department of Human Services, where funds have been housed for other Chicago Area Project programs over the years, but Republicans questioned whether as much as $15 million in new community grants is cash that would serve as a replacement for the controversial anti-violence program. They had similar questions about $10 million in after school grants.

“Why are we playing a shell game?” Reboletti said.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear how the Senate would respond if they are sent a budget without an accompanying tax increase. Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has long predicted he has the votes to pass a tax extension, and some members of his caucus have made it clear they are “not interested in taking a vote on a budget without the revenue to support it,” said spokeswoman Rikeesha Phelon.

“The House may send us one or both bills, and it will be up to us to decide what order to take them up,” Phelon said. “We are in wait and see mode.”